excerpt from Gerrard's new book
When Liverpool went out embarrassingly at Burnley in 2005, I was straight in to see Rafa the next day. I was that upset.
‘What’s the idea of putting out an under-strength side?’ I asked him. I was confused, hurt. Explain! ‘Rafa, before every season I dream of winning the FA Cup. That’s one of our realistic targets every year. The cup’s all I thought about as a kid. Going out of the cup kills me.’
The boss sat me down, and calmly talked me through his reasons. ‘We are in the Champions League,’ Rafa began. ‘We have too many games. Our squad is not good enough to deal with them all. Watch. I will prove to you why I have done it.’
And, of course, Liverpool won the Champions League. I won’t be knocking at the gaffer’s door ever again! Rafa’s always right.
In Cardiff, Rafa helped me fulfil my childhood dream of lifting the FA Cup. For that special moment at the Millennium, and for Istanbul, I will always revere the man. My relationship with Rafa is different to the one I had with Gérard Houllier. I was very, very close to Gérard; he was almost family, almost flesh and blood. Benitez is not cold towards me, just detached. Rafa doesn’t think he needs close bonds with players, even the captain. But respect flows naturally between me and Rafa: he’s the manager, I’m a player. Even when all the Chelsea mess was going on, my respect for him remained strong. When I decided to stay at Anfield, I knew me and Rafa had to make our relationship work to carry Liverpool forward. We both had to make more of an effort. Now, after Istanbul, Cardiff and the Chelsea saga, we have a good professional relationship. But it’s professional.
Everything Rafa says and does is designed to strengthen Liverpool. Twenty minutes after I lifted the FA Cup, Rafa was downstairs talking to the press and telling them Liverpool could have won it without me. ‘I don’t think we would have lost if we didn’t have Stevie,’ he said, ‘because we have played a lot of games without him.’ I’d scored two good goals and banged in a penalty, which was not a bad afternoon’s work, but I understood Rafa. The gaffer was not belittling my contribution, as some people thought, he was just saying that the team is everything, that his number eight is simply a cog in the Liverpool machine. Fair enough.
I was not surprised to hear the gaffer’s comments. In fact, I’m more surprised when Rafa comes out and pays me a compliment. I know how he works now. He’s the complete opposite to Houllier. If Liverpool win and I stick away a dead good hat-trick and do ninety-eight things right and two wrong, Rafa will pull me sharpish. ‘Stevie, about those two mistakes,’ he will say, and then he’ll speak to me for ten minutes about them. Nothing about the hat-trick or the ninety-eight good things! Rafa will never, ever mention the goals, the tackles, the passes. Initially, I was gobsmacked by this. ‘Doesn’t the gaffer like me?’ I thought. ‘Has he got something against me?’ Friends ask me whether Rafa’s cold attitude ****es me off, but it honestly doesn’t. That indifference is one of the million reasons why Rafa is top man in the coaching world. He doesn’t like giving out pats on the back. Sometimes, though, I need that little bit of love, that reassurance during a bad patch. Recently, I’ve detected a slight mellowing in the boss, a willingness to think about giving a compliment. But even then it’s done in such a low-key way I almost don’t realize Rafa has made it.
After the FA Cup final, Liverpool threw a party for the players and families, and Rafa was there. I wandered across to him, buzzing with our victory. As I walked towards him, my mind was full of one hope. Go on, just say it, Rafa. Just say, ‘Well done, Stevie.’ For once. Would he? No chance! Our chat once again revolved around things that went wrong on the day; it was nothing to do with how well Liverpool had done to get back into one of the greatest FA Cup finals ever. ‘Next season,’ Rafa kept saying. ‘Next season, we have to do better in the Premiership.’ Typical Rafa, always looking forward, never revelling in the moment like me and Carra. Rafa never even mentioned my two goals. Top goals, great goals, rescue-act goals. Not a squeak! I smacked in twenty-three goals that season for
Liverpool - not bad for a midfielder. Any other manager would have been all over me. Not Liverpool’s gaffer. ‘You never hit twenty-five,’ he remarked. ‘You missed the target by two!’ But, a smile! Amazing! Rafa actually smiled! Thank God. I wandered back to the lads, thinking, ‘Jesus, that was a compliment off Rafa.’
There I was, on top of the world after the FA Cup final and having scored twenty-three goals over the season, and there was Rafa bringing me back down to earth. Even his tiny compliment was an encouragement to improve. But that’s Rafa, always challenging me to push myself higher. Go for twenty-five goals. Go for thirty. Don’t relax. And Rafa has helped my performances go to another level. He’s such a hungry manager. ‘Small details, Steven, small details’ is one of his biggest shouts. Leave nothing to chance, even the tiniest detail. I’m getting to like this Spaniard more and more, and my aim is still to get a ‘well done’ off him before I retire. But then, if he gives me a ‘well done’, I might need treatment and a long lie-down. My legs would go all wobbly, like that French presenter girl who fainted at the Champions League draw when I was handing the cup back. And it wouldn’t be just me who would keel over if Rafa dished out a compliment. Every player in the Liverpool squad would need serious attention off Doc Waller if Rafa went soft on us. His hardness drives me on. I must crack it, though. I want to deliver in games to impress Rafa. I dream of that ‘well done’!
‘What’s the idea of putting out an under-strength side?’ I asked him. I was confused, hurt. Explain! ‘Rafa, before every season I dream of winning the FA Cup. That’s one of our realistic targets every year. The cup’s all I thought about as a kid. Going out of the cup kills me.’
The boss sat me down, and calmly talked me through his reasons. ‘We are in the Champions League,’ Rafa began. ‘We have too many games. Our squad is not good enough to deal with them all. Watch. I will prove to you why I have done it.’
And, of course, Liverpool won the Champions League. I won’t be knocking at the gaffer’s door ever again! Rafa’s always right.
In Cardiff, Rafa helped me fulfil my childhood dream of lifting the FA Cup. For that special moment at the Millennium, and for Istanbul, I will always revere the man. My relationship with Rafa is different to the one I had with Gérard Houllier. I was very, very close to Gérard; he was almost family, almost flesh and blood. Benitez is not cold towards me, just detached. Rafa doesn’t think he needs close bonds with players, even the captain. But respect flows naturally between me and Rafa: he’s the manager, I’m a player. Even when all the Chelsea mess was going on, my respect for him remained strong. When I decided to stay at Anfield, I knew me and Rafa had to make our relationship work to carry Liverpool forward. We both had to make more of an effort. Now, after Istanbul, Cardiff and the Chelsea saga, we have a good professional relationship. But it’s professional.
Everything Rafa says and does is designed to strengthen Liverpool. Twenty minutes after I lifted the FA Cup, Rafa was downstairs talking to the press and telling them Liverpool could have won it without me. ‘I don’t think we would have lost if we didn’t have Stevie,’ he said, ‘because we have played a lot of games without him.’ I’d scored two good goals and banged in a penalty, which was not a bad afternoon’s work, but I understood Rafa. The gaffer was not belittling my contribution, as some people thought, he was just saying that the team is everything, that his number eight is simply a cog in the Liverpool machine. Fair enough.
I was not surprised to hear the gaffer’s comments. In fact, I’m more surprised when Rafa comes out and pays me a compliment. I know how he works now. He’s the complete opposite to Houllier. If Liverpool win and I stick away a dead good hat-trick and do ninety-eight things right and two wrong, Rafa will pull me sharpish. ‘Stevie, about those two mistakes,’ he will say, and then he’ll speak to me for ten minutes about them. Nothing about the hat-trick or the ninety-eight good things! Rafa will never, ever mention the goals, the tackles, the passes. Initially, I was gobsmacked by this. ‘Doesn’t the gaffer like me?’ I thought. ‘Has he got something against me?’ Friends ask me whether Rafa’s cold attitude ****es me off, but it honestly doesn’t. That indifference is one of the million reasons why Rafa is top man in the coaching world. He doesn’t like giving out pats on the back. Sometimes, though, I need that little bit of love, that reassurance during a bad patch. Recently, I’ve detected a slight mellowing in the boss, a willingness to think about giving a compliment. But even then it’s done in such a low-key way I almost don’t realize Rafa has made it.
After the FA Cup final, Liverpool threw a party for the players and families, and Rafa was there. I wandered across to him, buzzing with our victory. As I walked towards him, my mind was full of one hope. Go on, just say it, Rafa. Just say, ‘Well done, Stevie.’ For once. Would he? No chance! Our chat once again revolved around things that went wrong on the day; it was nothing to do with how well Liverpool had done to get back into one of the greatest FA Cup finals ever. ‘Next season,’ Rafa kept saying. ‘Next season, we have to do better in the Premiership.’ Typical Rafa, always looking forward, never revelling in the moment like me and Carra. Rafa never even mentioned my two goals. Top goals, great goals, rescue-act goals. Not a squeak! I smacked in twenty-three goals that season for
Liverpool - not bad for a midfielder. Any other manager would have been all over me. Not Liverpool’s gaffer. ‘You never hit twenty-five,’ he remarked. ‘You missed the target by two!’ But, a smile! Amazing! Rafa actually smiled! Thank God. I wandered back to the lads, thinking, ‘Jesus, that was a compliment off Rafa.’
There I was, on top of the world after the FA Cup final and having scored twenty-three goals over the season, and there was Rafa bringing me back down to earth. Even his tiny compliment was an encouragement to improve. But that’s Rafa, always challenging me to push myself higher. Go for twenty-five goals. Go for thirty. Don’t relax. And Rafa has helped my performances go to another level. He’s such a hungry manager. ‘Small details, Steven, small details’ is one of his biggest shouts. Leave nothing to chance, even the tiniest detail. I’m getting to like this Spaniard more and more, and my aim is still to get a ‘well done’ off him before I retire. But then, if he gives me a ‘well done’, I might need treatment and a long lie-down. My legs would go all wobbly, like that French presenter girl who fainted at the Champions League draw when I was handing the cup back. And it wouldn’t be just me who would keel over if Rafa dished out a compliment. Every player in the Liverpool squad would need serious attention off Doc Waller if Rafa went soft on us. His hardness drives me on. I must crack it, though. I want to deliver in games to impress Rafa. I dream of that ‘well done’!